The Flitting

I've left my own old home of homes,

Green fields and every pleasant place;

The summer like a stranger comes,

I pause and hardly know her face.

I miss the hazel's happy green,

The blue bell's quiet hanging blooms,

Where envy's sneer was never seen,

Where staring malice never comes.

I miss the heath, its yellow furze,

Molehills and rabbit tracks that lead

Through beesom, ling, and teazel burrs

That spread a wilderness indeed;

The woodland oaks and all below

That their white powdered branches shield,

The mossy paths: the very crow

Croaks music in my native field.

I sit me in my corner chair

That seems to feel itself from home,

And hear bird music here and there

From hawthorn hedge and orchard come;

I hear, but all is strange and new:

I sat on my old bench in June,

The sailing puddock's shrill "peelew"

On Royce Wood seemed a sweeter tune.

I walk adown the narrow lane,

The nightingale is singing now,

But like to me she seems at loss

For Royce Wood and its shielding bough.

I lean upon the window sill,

The trees and summer happy seem;

Green, sunny green they shine, but still

My heart goes far away to dream.

Of happiness, and thoughts arise

With home-bred pictures many a one,

Green lanes that shut out burning skies

And old crooked stiles to rest upon;

Above them hangs the maple tree,

Below grass swells a velvet hill,

And little footpaths sweet to see

Go seeking sweeter places still,

With bye and bye a brook to cross

Oer which a little arch is thrown:

No brook is here, I feel the loss

From home and friends and all alone.

--The stone pit with its shelvy sides

Seemed hanging rocks in my esteem;

I miss the prospect far and wide

From Langley Bush, and so I seem

Alone and in a stranger scene,

Far, far from spots my heart esteems,

The closen with their ancient green,

Heaths, woods, and pastures, sunny streams.

The hawthorns here were hung with may,

But still they seem in deader green,

The sun een seems to lose its way

Nor knows the quarter it is in.

I dwell in trifles like a child,

I feel as ill becomes a man,

And still my thoughts like weedlings wild

Grow up to blossom where they can.

They turn to places known so long

I feel that joy was dwelling there,

So home-fed pleasure fills the song

That has no present joys to hear.

I read in books for happiness,

But books are like the sea to joy,

They change--as well give age the glass

To hunt its visage when a boy.

For books they follow fashions new

And throw all old esteems away,

In crowded streets flowers never grew,

But many there hath died away.

Some sing the pomps of chivalry

As legends of the ancient time,

Where gold and pearls and mystery

Are shadows painted for sublime;

But passions of sublimity

Belong to plain and simpler things,

And David underneath a tree

Sought when a shepherd Salem's springs,

Where moss did into cushions spring,

Forming a seat of velvet hue,

A small unnoticed trifling thing

To all but heaven's hailing dew.

And David's crown hath passed away,

Yet poesy breathes his shepherd-skill,

His palace lost--and to this day

The little moss is blossoming still.

Strange scenes mere shadows are to me,

Vague impersonifying things;

I love with my old haunts to be

By quiet woods and gravel springs,

Where little pebbles wear as smooth

As hermits' beads by gentle floods,

Whose noises do my spirits soothe

And warm them into singing moods.

Here every tree is strange to me,

All foreign things where eer I go,

There's none where boyhood made a swee

Or clambered up to rob a crow.

No hollow tree or woodland bower

Well known when joy was beating high,

Where beauty ran to shun a shower

And love took pains to keep her dry,

And laid the sheaf upon the ground

To keep her from the dripping grass,

And ran for stocks and set them round

Till scarce a drop of rain could pass

Through; where the maidens they reclined

And sung sweet ballads now forgot,

Which brought sweet memories to the mind,

But here no memory knows them not.

There have I sat by many a tree

And leaned oer many a rural stile,

And conned my thoughts as joys to me,

Nought heeding who might frown or smile.

Twas nature's beauty that inspired

My heart with rapture not its own,

And she's a fame that never tires;

How could I feel myself alone?

No, pasture molehills used to lie

And talk to me of sunny days,

And then the glad sheep resting bye

All still in ruminating praise

Of summer and the pleasant place

And every weed and blossom too

Was looking upward in my face

With friendship's welcome "how do ye do?"

All tenants of an ancient place

And heirs of noble heritage,

Coeval they with Adam's race

And blest with more substantial age.

For when the world first saw the sun

These little flowers beheld him too,

And when his love for earth begun

They were the first his smiles to woo.

There little lambtoe bunches springs

In red tinged and begolden dye

For ever, and like China kings

They come but never seem to die.

There may-bloom with its little threads

Still comes upon the thorny bowers

And neer forgets those prickly heads

Like fairy pins amid the flowers.

And still they bloom as on the day

They first crowned wilderness and rock,

When Abel haply wreathed with may

The firstlings of his little flock,

And Eve might from the matted thorn

To deck her lone and lovely brow

Reach that same rose that heedless scorn

Misnames as the dog rosey now.

Give me no high-flown fangled things,

No haughty pomp in marching chime,

Where muses play on golden strings

And splendour passes for sublime,

Where cities stretch as far as fame

And fancy's straining eye can go,

And piled until the sky for shame

Is stooping far away below.

I love the verse that mild and bland

Breathes of green fields and open sky,

I love the muse that in her hand

Bears flowers of native poesy;

Who walks nor skips the pasture brook

In scorn, but by the drinking horse

Leans oer its little brig to look

How far the sallows lean across,

And feels a rapture in her breast

Upon their root-fringed grains to mark

A hermit morehen's sedgy nest

Just like a naiad's summer bark.

She counts the eggs she cannot reach

Admires the spot and loves it well,

And yearns, so nature's lessons teach,

Amid such neighbourhoods to dwell.

I love the muse who sits her down

Upon the molehill's little lap,

Who feels no fear to stain her gown

And pauses by the hedgerow gap;

Not with that affectation, praise

Of song, to sing and never see

A field flower grown in all her days

Or een a forest's aged tree.

Een here my simple feelings nurse

A love for every simple weed,

And een this little shepherd's purse

Grieves me to cut it up; indeed

I feel at times a love and joy

For every weed and every thing,

A feeling kindred from a boy,

A feeling brought with every Spring.

And why? this shepherd's purse that grows

In this strange spot, in days gone bye

Grew in the little garden rows

Of my old home now left; and I

Feel what I never felt before,

This weed an ancient neighbour here,

And though I own the spot no more

Its every trifle makes it dear.

The ivy at the parlour end,

The woodbine at the garden gate,

Are all and each affection's friend

That render parting desolate.

But times will change and friends must part

And nature still can make amends;

Their memory lingers round the heart

Like life whose essence is its friends.

Time looks on pomp with vengeful mood

Or killing apathy's disdain;

So where old marble cities stood

Poor persecuted weeds remain.

She feels a love for little things

That very few can feel beside,

And still the grass eternal springs

Where castles stood and grandeur died.